


Five Times Sherlock Holmes and John Watson Hugged, and One Time They Didn't

by longwhitecoats



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-10-18
Updated: 2011-10-18
Packaged: 2017-10-24 18:16:23
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,746
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/266440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/longwhitecoats/pseuds/longwhitecoats
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They're sitting in the living room one night after finishing their curry takeaway when Sherlock looks up from his violin. "John," he says, "would you come hug me, please?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Five Times Sherlock Holmes and John Watson Hugged, and One Time They Didn't

**Author's Note:**

> PG-13/R for violence (graphic mention of dead bodies at a homicide scene, brief treatment of PTSD), G for sex, implied romantic / possibly asexual relationship. Based on the BBC series.
> 
> This fic is intended for anyone who likes hugs.

They're sitting in the living room one night after finishing their curry takeaway when Sherlock looks up from his violin. "John," he says, "would you come hug me, please?"

The request is such an absolute bolt from the blue that John can't even think to second-guess it. He blinks. He lifts his arms uncertainly, walks over to Sherlock, and tentatively embraces him, careful not to damage the violin. Sherlock is skinnier than he expected, but his hand is warm through John's bulky old sweater when he places it on his back.

John straightens up. Sherlock looks him in the eye, face blank. "Thank you," he says, and goes back to playing a disastrous sonata.

\--

That evening, when John goes to bed, he sits ramrod straight at its edge for twenty minutes, thinking over the events of the past week, seen and unseen. There was that hour on Thursday when Sherlock suddenly flew out of the flat in a huff after getting a text message; perhaps Mycroft had told him something about the family. If they still had family left, of course, John thinks, realizing he's never asked. It would be unlikely that a case was getting to him. Sherlock was hard to frighten. This was, after all, a man who flogged corpses for data on impact markings. 

Something about that last thought niggles at John's brain as he sets aside his cane, tucks himself under the covers, and lets sleep take him.

\--

The next morning, John's standing at the kitchen table having a coffee and some toast--sitting is too hard on his leg this soon after waking up--when he feels Sherlock come up behind him. They're not touching, but the warmth from Sherlock's body radiates all the way down John's back, from head to heel.

"John," Sherlock says, voice low in his ear, very close. "Would you hug me, please?"

Slowly, John turns around. His face is about three inches from Sherlock's, and he can smell the shampoo in his hair, see tiny droplets on his still-wet curls. The top of his collar is damp. 

"Sure," John says, and he tilts his head away as he leans in, slowly sliding his palms past Sherlock's waist, pressing him to his chest. 

Sherlock does exactly the same thing he did the previous night: he puts one firm hand on John's back, brushes his chin over John's shoulder, then leans back and says, "Thank you." And then he walks away.

John narrows his eyes at Sherlock as he goes out the door, whistling. Something is definitely up. 

\--

It's not until that afternoon that John figures it out. Lestrade calls them to a scene, double homicide, house somewhere near Croydon. When they get inside, past all the tape and photographers, the place is a mess. There's blood all over the walls and floor; the murder weapon, a pair of gardening shears, protrudes from the neck of the younger corpse, a teenage girl. John feels that little catch in the back of his head, like a breaker trying to switch on or a car turning over, but the connection, as always, doesn't click. He walks in.

Sherlock walks right over to the bodies and begins examining them with his usual intensity. It's not until he's done and has been talking with Lestrade for a few minutes that John sees his eyebrows go up and his face change, like he's remembered something, and then he leans over and whispers in Lestrade's ear. And Lestrade, stunningly, draws Sherlock close for a long, serious hug.

John is floored. His lips have gone dry and numb, and an emotion embarrassingly close to jealously is rising in his throat. He watches them pull apart, sees Sherlock mouth  _Thank you_  at Lestrade with large, liquid eyes, and why doesn't Sherlock ever look at  _John_  like that, and then Sherlock is talking to Donovan and then they're hugging, too, and that's when John gets it, and he's so startled that he actually laughs.

A few of the cameramen look up in surprise, but Sherlock just turns that amused little smile on him, and John waits, chuckling, for him to finish his rounds. Sherlock hugs the entire police crew and even one of the press before he saunters up to John and looks him over. "You're amused," he says. "I should have thought you'd be upset."

"Well, it's not every day, is it?" John says. "At least I can see you're taking the job seriously."

"It's important to get a decent sample size," Sherlock says. "After all, I couldn't learn everything I need to know from hugging just one person, now could I?" He's pulled his chin down slightly, as if to allow more room on his face for the smile he's fixed on John, one of his rare  _I'm pleased with you_  smiles. "Come, we need a cab."

As John climbs in, he mutters to himself, "God knows what Christmas must be like at the Holmes residence," but Sherlock hears him.

"No one has attempted to hug Mycroft for eighteen years," Sherlock replies. He looks back at John. "Not since Jakarta."

John has nothing to say to that, so they take the cab ride in silence.

\--

Nothing out of the ordinary happens for the next few days, though John does get to see a parade of Sherlock's attempts at hugging strangers, which is vastly entertaining. The greengrocer slaps him on the back with an open palm and a "tha' be a' right, now," and their usual waitress at the thai place just clucks her tongue and rocks Sherlock gently, like a child. John begins to see how Sherlock studies them, memorizing how they lean, whether their hands touch him and how, what they say when he asks. Passersby on the street generally decline Sherlock's request, with varying degrees of verbal abuse; one adolescent boy with falsely greyed hair and a skateboard wraps his arms around Sherlock and holds him for a good ten seconds, and when Sherlock says thank you, he answers, "Naw, thank  _you_ , mate," and skates away.

Then, as John's coming in with a bag of groceries, tired from tromping up the stairs, Sherlock meets him at the door and takes the bag out of his hands, putting it on the floor.

"John," he says, as if it were perfectly usual, "would you hug me, please?" 

John is taken aback. "You've already hugged me," he says. "Twice."

"Nevertheless," Sherlock says, and doesn't move. John can feel that familiar warmth and, this time, smell the peculiar smell that he's never before put a name to but knows must be the scent of Sherlock's skin, and it makes him angry. His face darkens.

"No, Sherlock," he says, pushing his way past and into the room. "I don't know what you're playing at, but I'm tired of it. This isn't a game, and you've had your little experiment with me. I'm going to put away the groceries, and I don't want to hear anything more about this."

Sherlock doesn't argue. He just stands in the open doorway, looking stricken but resolute, mouth a firm line, eyes shining. John grimaces, wipes a hand over his mouth, and then, "Oh, for fuck's sake," he says, and walks over and puts one arm around Sherlock to pat him firmly on the shoulder. He turns away and picks up the bag.

"That wasn't as warm as your other hugs," Sherlock says, sounding puzzled, and John rounds on him.

"Of course it bloody wasn't!" he shouts. The door is open, Mrs. Hudson will hear, but he doesn't care. He points his free hand at Sherlock's chest. "You're deranged. You think that people are just bodies to be experimented on. You have so little idea of what actual affection is like that you have to  _run an experiment_  on what it is like for someone to  _hug you!_ " he says, his voice tight and clean. Sherlock flinches, he sees it, but something's come loose inside him, and he can feel the slow welling up in his stomach and throat that means he's still building, he can't stop. "I am not your personal  _petrie dish_ ," he says, and goes over to open the refrigerator. Inside is a head. John roars wordlessly and slams it shut, dropping the bag in front of Sherlock. "You do it," he growls. 

Sherlock hasn't moved by the time John reaches the door to his room. He's just watching, sleeves rolled up and hands in his pockets, the nicotine patches on his arms only slightly less pale than his skin.

\--

John wakes up early the next morning and goes out for a walk by the Thames. His leg is awfully stiff, mostly from the lack of sleep, but John stays out in town all day and doesn't come home until after dinner. He doesn't see Sherlock at all. The groceries have been put away, which is, in their house, a veritable miracle.

\--

The next few days, they don't talk except for an occasional "excuse me" or "pass the remote" while bumping elbows around the flat. Perhaps the experiment's over, or perhaps Sherlock has decided to be tactful, but John doesn't see him hug anyone else, even when they go up to the station to meet with Lestrade. John remains silent the whole time, grim-faced and still, but he sees how Lestrade looks them both over curiously, gathering something from their behaviour.

"Lovers' tiff?" Donovan says to John as they're leaving. He jerks up, his face hot and blushing almost instantaneously. "Ah, well," she says with a nasty smirk, "give it to 'im good and hard. 'S how he likes his hugs, anyway." 

Neither John nor Sherlock says anything to her, but somehow, when they get back to the flat, they're talking again. They debate the relative force of blows with right-handed versus left-handed shears for about fifteen minutes until John points out that there's no such thing as right- or left-handed shears, just shears held a different way, and Sherlock is so delighted by this that he agrees to watch an entire hour of John's favorite serial.

It is the nearest thing, John thinks, that he will get to an apology, and so he lets it go.

\--

Sherlock clearly interpreted the situation differently, he realizes the next day.

"John," Sherlock says, walking into the kitchen while John's searching for the middle eastern takeaway menu, "Would you--"

"Stop that, I'm not kidding," John says, standing up and turning round. He takes two deep breaths in through his nose. Sherlock has halted about four feet away from him, all clammed up, but not going anywhere. "Look," he says, "what is this about, really? Is this a test to see how long it takes to make me angry? Because you've done that, good job, I'm angry. Are you trying to make me jealous? Done that too," he says, suddenly realizing what he's saying and flushing bright red again, but he can't stop now. "So I'm done with it, okay? Let's just drop it."

But Sherlock has that brilliant gleam to his eyes again, the look that means he's got a new and truly fabulous idea, and he's started walking closer. He inhales sharply and holds the breath, considering his words, his head cocked to one side. "What would I have to do," he says, "to get you to hug me?" John starts to argue, but Sherlock puts up a hand. "I'm not bargaining," he says. "I mean, what would  _naturally_  compel you to hug me? If I hadn't been asking already?"

John looks down, thinks. "I don't know," he says. "I suppose..." He contemplates all the times he's hugged Harry, darling Harry who, though he would never admit this, John actually finds far more infuriating than Sherlock. There was the day Harry showed up blitzed at two-thirty in the afternoon before they were meant to drive across the country to pick up Clara. The night Clara and Harry split, and John knew it was Harry's fault, knew it in his bones, but hugged his sobbing sister anyway. "I suppose you'd have to really need a hug," he says simply, and Sherlock's face clears, like John has given him the answer to all his questions.

Sherlock nods. "All right," he says. "I'll be back." He puts on his coat and leaves.

\--

Two hours later, John has gotten a text from Mycroft saying  _What did you DO to him_ , and Sherlock comes thundering back into the flat with his face in a scowl. He looks up at John menacingly. 

John is almost sure of what Sherlock wants, but it's still so strange that he waits for him to say it. When he does, it's through gritted teeth, as though he can barely stand to admit it, and that's so very Sherlock, so very honest, that when he manages to grumble out, "John, would you hug me, please," John actually smiles, and he wraps his arms around Sherlock and holds him until he feels Sherlock's shoulders drop. 

Sherlock doesn't put his hand on John's back this time. He just leaves his hands jammed into his pockets, sulking, but as his tension dissipates in John's embrace, he lifts two fingers up and catches John's belt loop.

John lets him go. Sherlock just stands there, holding John tenuously at the waist, his face clouded and uncertain. 

He doesn't say thank you. After a minute or so, he pulls his hand away swiftly, as if he'd just noticed it, and goes to pick up his violin. John feels a spike of frustration for a moment, reaches out his hands, but then it subsides, and he turns back to ordering them some dinner.

\--

Later that night, John is nodding off trying to get through the latest Evanovich while Sherlock lies on the couch staring up at the ceiling, when Sherlock says, "You recall my telling you that I do not date."

His voice is loud in the quiet room. John looks up. "Sorry?"

"When you first moved in," Sherlock says. He's still looking at the ceiling. "We were having dinner in the restaurant."

"I remember," John says, wondering. 

There's a pause. Sherlock sighs through his nose, an annoyed sort of snorting sound. He's clearly vexed at having to put this into words so that John can understand. John closes his book, thinking of all the reasons Sherlock might have had for conducting an experiment on hugging, of why Sherlock might have required more than one hug from him, of all people, in order to get his results. 

"I have not, historically, been a physically affectionate person," Sherlock finally continues. "I have never seen the point." He punctuates this last word with his hand, lifting it and then letting it drape over his eyes, looking wearied.

"All right," John says, trying to be encouraging.

Sherlock fixes him with a hot, vulnerable look, and John's mouth goes dry, but he doesn't say anything. "I am beginning to re-evaluate my position on the subject where you are concerned," he says. He hesitates. "It is possible that this will be a rather lengthy evaluative process."

They just look at each other for a long time. John folds his hands together and slowly nods. "All right," he says again, because it is.

Sherlock sits up abruptly. He opens his mouth. Then he closes it again. He wraps his robe around himself and deflates like a balloon. He has, John realizes, absolutely no idea what he is meant to do now.

John gets up, walks over to the couch, and sits down next to his flatmate. "Sherlock," he says, "would you like a hug?"

Sherlock looks fiercely upset, but John knows that look, and it isn't anger, it's uncertainty. Or perhaps for Sherlock uncertainty immediately produces anger, since it happens so rarely in the first place. Either way, Sherlock nods, and John leans over awkwardly and puts one arm under and around Sherlock's waist, and the other around the back of his neck, and their knees bump, and it really ought to be awful, but it isn't. Sherlock smells like Sherlock, and his breath is soft next to John's ear, and he puts one warm hand on John's knee. They stay like that for a while, and when they sit up again, Sherlock's pupils are wide. He looks slightly intoxicated.

John smiles. "You can have a hug whenever you want one," he says. "All right?"

"Yes," Sherlock says, exhaling with obvious relief. "That will do nicely."


End file.
